In the skin of a beast : sovereignty and animality in medieval France / Peggy McCracken.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McCracken, Peggy, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

French literature--To 1500--History and criticism.

French literature.

Hides and skins in literature.

Human-animal relationships in literature.

Sovereignty in literature.

Hides and skins--Symbolic aspects--France--History.

Hides and skins.

Animals--Symbolic aspects--France--History.

Animals.

Hides and skins--Political aspects--France--History.

Human-animal relationships--Political aspects--France--History.

Human-animal relationships.

History.

Animals--Symbolic aspects.

Hides and skins--Symbolic aspects.

France.

Physical Description:

x, 217 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Summary:

In medieval literature, when humans and animals meet - whether as friends or foes - issues of mastery and submission are often at stake. 'In the Skin of a Beast' shows how the concept of sovereignty comes to the fore in such narratives, reflecting larger concerns about relations of authority and dominion at play in both human-animal and human-human interactions. Peggy McCracken discusses a range of literary texts and images from medieval France, including romances in which animal skins appear in symbolic displays of power, fictional explorations of the wolf's desire for human domestication, and tales of women and snakes converging in a representation of territorial claims and noble status. These works reveal that the qualities traditionally used to define sovereignty - lineage and gender among them - are in fact mobile and contingent. In medieval literary texts, as McCracken demonstrates, human dominion over animals is a disputed model for sovereign relations among people: it justifies exploitation even as it mandates protection and care, and it depends on reiterations of human-animal difference that paradoxically expose the tenuous nature of human exceptionalism.

Contents:

Introduction

Wearing animals: skin, survival, and sovereignty

The social wolf: domestication, affect, and social contract

Becoming-animal, becoming-sovereign: skin, heraldry, and the beast

Snakes and women: recognition, knowledge, and sovereignty

Becoming-human, becoming-sovereign: gender, genealogy, and the wild man

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780226458922

022645892X

OCLC:

958781740